Increased shipping activity associated with Rio Tinto’s HIsmelt pig iron plant and BGC’s new cement plant has brought industry concern about port infrastructure at Kwinana to a head.
Increased shipping activity associated with Rio Tinto’s HIsmelt pig iron plant and BGC’s new cement plant has brought industry concern about port infrastructure at Kwinana to a head.
Current users of the bulk shipping terminal believe the facilities are not adequate and are concerned that problems will get much worse when the $400 million HIsmelt plant starts production later this year.
Mineral sands company Tiwest has already announced plans to transfer most of its bulk shipping activities from Kwinana to the port of Bunbury, where it believes it will get a better deal.
A spokesman for Rio Tinto said current facilities were not adequate.
“We have been working with the Fremantle Port Authority and they are aware that current facilities are going to fall short of our full production requirements for stage one,” the spokesman said.
This puts a cloud over the planned expansion of the HIsmelt plant.
Fremantle Ports said it was spending $30 million upgrading its 40 year old Kwinana bulk terminal, including installing a new bulk unloader and an upgraded conveyor system.
However BGC chairman Len Buckeridge – a regular critic of the Gallop government – believes the upgraded terminal, due to be operational in April 2005, will still be inadequate.
Mr Buckeridge is doubly concerned because he believes the Government is frustrating plans by James Point Pty Ltd – a private company backed indirectly by BGC – to develop an alternative land-backed wharf, a claim rejected by the WA Government.
The controversy at Kwinana coincides with similar problems at Geraldton (see page 4) and comes at a time when shipping volumes are set to escalate dramatically.
HIsmelt will import 1.4 million tonnes of iron ore and 600,000 tonnes of coal each year and export 820,000 tonnes of pig iron.
The planned HIsmelt expansion would double these volumes.
BGC plans to unload 700,000 tonnes of clinker and 120,000 tonnes of gypsum each year through the bulk terminal.
Mr Buckeridge said this material was “absolutely vital” to its manufacturing activities.
He said the current unloader at the bulk terminal had a designated capacity of just 300 tonnes an hour and broke down during nearly every shipment.
Recent problems have prompted BGC to truck gypsum from Ravensthorpe and Kalannie rather than shipping it from Carnarvon.
If this continued, the company would have 2,000 road-train loads rather than two ship loads coming into Perth each year.
Fremantle Ports acting chief executive Chris Leatt-Hayter said upgrading the terminal to service the needs of existing customers and new customers such as HIsmelt had been tackled as a top priority.
“The new unloader will ensure efficient unloading of vessels and improve berth availability,” Mr Leatt-Hayter said.
Mr Buckeridge disputed this, saying the new unloader would have the same capacity as the current unloader, whereas the unloader planned for James Point has a capacity of 800 tonnes.
Once HIsmelt ramps up production, the increased use of the wharf is expected to cause significant delays.
An added concern is that the coal and iron ore imported by HIsmelt could contaminate material imported by other companies.
“When HIsmelt gets going it will be an unmitigated disaster,” Mr Buckeridge said.
He also claimed Fremantle Port’s bulk unloading charge of $11.10 per tonne was among the most expensive in the world.
“The costs of the Fremantle Port Authority are just not commercially realistic,” Mr Buckeridge said.
Tiwest announced last week that it would export minerals sands products from its Chandala processing plant, north of Perth, via Bunbury instead of Kwinana.
The company said transporting mineral sands by road to Bunbury would enable it to “backload” the trucks with coal and other materials for the return journey, creating considerable benefits.
However Tiwest’s logistics manager Neil Liddelow also said Kwinana’s storage and handling facilities were “very outdated”, the amount of undercover storage was not adequate and projected utilisation of the bulk terminal could create scheduling issues.
